Castriela Hernández-Reyes

Her multi-sited ethnographic research explores how race, gender, body, class, and racism intersect and are co-constructed through Black women's, officials', and former combatants' voices and lived experiences in the framework of the Colombian armed conflict and transitional justice system.

Castriela Hernández-Reyes is a Palenquera woman who was born in Barranquilla, Colombia. She is a mother, intellectual, scholar, and doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. As a Black/Decolonial feminist anthropologist from South America, she studies how interlocking systems of power, oppression, and exclusion operate and intersect in war contexts and how they are tied to unbroken colonial patterns of racism in Colombia. Her published works appear in Latin American Perspectives and Latin American Research Review. Additionally, she is one co-author of the book "Lenguajes Incluyentes: Alternativas Democráticas" (2021) and author of several book chapters.

Dissertation: "Black Women and the Materiality of Race, Gender, Body, and Racism within the Armed Conflict and Transitional Justice System in Colombia"

Committee members: Dr. Whitney Battle-Baptiste(Chair); Dr. Amanda Walker-Johnson; Dr. Agustin Lao-Montes, and Dr. Joanne Rappaport

Her multi-sited ethnographic research explores how race, gender, body, class, and racism intersect and are co-constructed through Black women's, officials', and former combatants' voices and lived experiences in the framework of the Colombian armed conflict and transitional justice system.

Publications

Media and Presentations